


sunday morning (and i'm falling)

by thenewgothicromance



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Boris experiences a microaggression, Every fic I write is about Boris moving to new york after the book ok, M/M, Popchyk Shenanigans, Recreational Drug Use, also i don't like rich people just putting that out there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:54:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22031089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenewgothicromance/pseuds/thenewgothicromance
Summary: “How long will he be staying with you?” Mrs. Barbour asks him one evening, when he mentions that Boris will be picking him up after dinner.“I’m not sure,” he tells her, keeping the details, as always surrounding Boris, as vague as possible. “Just until he figures something else out.”Mrs. Barbour clicks her tongue at him.“You have such a kind heart, Theo. Be careful you don’t let him take advantage of you.”
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 56
Kudos: 608





	sunday morning (and i'm falling)

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhh if you really like Mrs. Barbour......maybe don't read this one.
> 
> Special shoutout to @bisansastarks for reading all throughout and being salty about rich people with me, and without whom I never would have actually finished this. 
> 
> Title from The Velvet Underground

When Boris comes to New York, he doesn’t say how long he’s staying. He does ask if Theo has a spare room.

“You get tired of hotels, you know? Would be nice to be in a house for a while.” 

Theo does know. Of course he says yes. 

Over the past year they’d seen each other sporadically, when their paths happened to cross as Theo traveled to buy back the changelings, as Boris traveled to…well, to do whatever it was Boris did. Theo tried not to ask. 

Theo has to tell Boris, of course, why he’s in Europe so much. Well, perhaps he could have lied about it, but he doesn’t--he’s always found it hard to lie to Boris, and besides, why should he?

So he tells Boris about the changelings, in a rush, embarrassed to admit to it. Boris shakes his head and smiles. 

“You have been very bad Potter, don’t know if we can be friends anymore.” 

“Shut up,” Theo mumbles, his face hot and red. Boris laughs. 

When Theo has bought back as many of the pieces he could and returns to New York, he moves out of the shop. Hobie didn’t asked him to--he’s very concerned about letting Theo know he doesn’t have to, in fact.

“I’m 25, Hobie. It’s time I get my own place.”

He needs to get away from it. Needs to get away from Welty’s bedroom, from the memory of it all. When he’d had the painting (or thought he’d had the painting, anyway) it seemed pointless to try leaving any of the rest of it behind. As long as he had the painting he would always have to remember--so why not lean in? 

But now he can hardly stand it. All he can think of when he looks at that bedroom is Pippa telling him, “We can’t lean on each other,” and how much he knew she was right. 

“Well make sure you find the right place,” Hobie tells him. “You know that room will always be yours, as long as you need it.” 

So he gets his own apartment, not far from the shop, just a few blocks down and around the corner, above a chinese restaurant and a pawn shop. Somehow this time, looking for the apartment--being shown around old empty rooms where the windows rattled and a cold draft snuck in through the cracks--didn’t feel like a death sentence. The haunted feeling he’d had examining spaces with Kitsey, the imagining of past lives and past troubles and the  _ past _ had eased somewhat. Maybe because there was no expectation for this new place; it wasn’t somewhere he had to build a perfect new life--no china, fine or casual, just a couple of old plates Hobie had given him--just a place to keep him dry for a while.

There isn’t actually a spare bedroom. Theo didn’t have the need for a spare bedroom before Boris was back in town--what, for all those friends he had coming to visit? All the precious things he owned?--but Boris sleeps, most nights, on the couch. Sometimes, if they stay up late talking, or watching movies on the television Theo keeps in the bedroom, Boris will fall asleep on the bed, and Theo will let him. 

It’s like when they were kids. Theo still remembers what it was like to share everything they owned, including the spaces they lived and slept in. Boris, snoring next to him, drooling on the pillow - nothing new in that, really. Besides, it’s for a few weeks or so, until Boris’ presence is needed elsewhere, or he gets bored, or whatever happens that makes Boris move from place to place. 

Being grown men now, though, it  _ is _ different from their younger days. Theo is at work for much of the day, and Boris keeps himself occupied around the city with his own business. Sometimes he’s at the apartment when Theo gets home in the evening, and sometimes he stumbles in late into the night, smelling of vodka and laughing at a joke Gyuri told him on the ride home that he tries to recount between hiccups, but with all his laughing and switching languages, Theo almost never gets the punchline. He laughs anyway. 

\--

“How long will he be staying with you?” Mrs. Barbour asks him one evening, when he mentions that Boris will be picking him up after dinner (there’s an antique shop in Greenpoint that Boris has cajoled him into visiting, despite Theo’s certainty there will be nothing noteworthy about it, not exactly trusting Boris’ eye).

He and Kitsey still haven’t made any formal announcement about the engagement being off, but she--much to Mrs. Barbour’s chagrin--started seeing Tom somewhat more publically while Theo was away, and that suits Theo just fine. He still tries to avoid running into Tom whenever he can, exchanging no more than awkward nods with him a handful of times, but that has less to do with Kitsey and more to do with the stinging memory of Tom’s cigarettes--the cigarettes that changed Theo’s life in every way--and Tom’s indifference about them. They were so young, Theo knows that, and it was an awfully awkward situation to be in, but even still Tom has never mentioned it. Although, perhaps it would be even more awkward now, with Kitsey sort of between them, like a sore thumb. Sometimes he wonders what Tom thinks of him--if Tom ever stops to consider him at all, that is. Does he think of Theo as weak? As the man who couldn’t keep the beautiful girl? A boy who lost everything and became a man who couldn’t hold onto anything?

It doesn’t matter, it’s not as if Theo’s putting stock in what  _ Tom Cable _ thinks of him these days anyway. He can still imagine them being happy together, Tom and Kitsey, and the fun they must have together with their loud laughter, and the easy way he puts his arm around her when Mrs. Barbour isn’t around to see. He doesn’t resent them for it, truly, and sometimes he can hear Boris saying  _ “Which means your soul is not too mixed up with hers.”  _

“I’m not sure,” he tells Mrs. Barbour, keeping the details, as always surrounding Boris, as vague as possible. “Just until he figures something else out.”

Mrs. Barbour clicks her tongue at him. 

“You have such a kind heart, Theo. Be careful you don’t let him take advantage of you.”

The incompatibility of  _ Boris _ and  _ taking advantage  _ leaves him momentarily speechless. Not because it was unthinkable, exactly, that Boris would take too much - after all, how often had he taken one of Theo’s favorite CDs and never given it back, or eaten the leftovers of Theo’s favorite snacks when they were kids? And the painting, well. 

But Boris didn’t take without giving back. It had always been that way - from the money, and food, and spoils of shoplifting they had split evenly, down the middle, to him risking his life to get the painting back - Boris didn’t take advantage of people. He took, and then he gave, and he assumed the ebb and flow of life would make it a wash in the end. And he was usually right. 

Theo could never possibly explain all of this to Mrs. Barbour, though, so he just nods and gives her a weak smile. He feels like shit about it afterward, when Boris comes to the door to get him, rather than just texting like any normal person would, and Mrs. Barbour looks him up and down without rising from her chair in the sitting room, a thin smile plastered on her face.

Theo forgets, because of how well Boris blends into the neighborhoods he usually frequents--the lower east side where he’s always meeting Theo for dinner or drinks after work, exactly the places Theo had always imagined he might enjoy when he first got back to New York and imagined Boris around every corner--how different he is from the Barbours. Standing in the sitting room in his leather boots and his flashy but not all that fancy watch, and his shirtsleeves rolled up such that the bottom of the rose tattooed on his arm is visible - he looks sorely out of place.

Boris, to his credit, doesn’t seem to notice. He gives Mrs. Barbour a blinding smile and shakes her hand just a bit too roughly. 

“I’m an old friend of Theo’s, yes,” he says when she asks, and opens his mouth to say something else, but Theo pushes him out the door. 

“You are embarrassed of me,” Boris says cheerfully when they get into the car waiting outside.

“No I’m not,” Theo says, almost on reflex. It’s true, though. He’s not embarrassed for the Barbours to meet Boris, whatever they may think of him. It just seems…simpler, this way, limiting the amount of time Boris really has to talk to them. Not that Boris is going around telling people about the painting, and everything that happened in Amsterdam, but there are just too many things--too many little things--Theo doesn’t need Mrs. Barbour of all people hearing. “I was just ready to leave.”

Boris drops it, thankfully, and begins telling him about the shop they’re going to, while Theo leans against the window and closes his eyes.

\--

The antique shop, as predicted, is nothing special. Boris chats with the owner in spirited Polish while Theo half-heartedly examines a chest of drawers from the 30s that was clearly made by someone’s grandfather who had no real training in technique or style. A piece that had gotten the job done, certainly, but it lacked any real distinction, and the wood was water-damaged and swollen such that the drawers barely opened. 

“My good friend here,” Boris says in English, coming to clap Theo on the shoulder, “he’s a dealer himself! Talks about furniture all the time, I don’t understand a word of it, but even I can tell, he’s an expert!”

“Boris, shut up,” Theo mutters, pushing his arm away. The shop owner says something again in Polish, and Boris laughs. 

“What a great little shop, no?” Boris says when they leave, and Theo nods and makes a few non-committal noises. “I thought you’d like it. I saw it the other day on my way back to meet Gyuri and I thought of you right away!”

Despite the shop itself being underwhelming, Boris had that way about him that made him almost impossible to disagree with at times - Boris had certainly had a good time in the shop, and watching him have it was a sort of fun all it’s own. 

It’s strange, going on little outings like this with Boris. Their activities in high school had mostly amounted to shoplifting and wandering around empty neighborhoods, empty playgrounds, out of their minds on whatever drug Boris had stolen from his dad, or they stole from Xandra, or bought off kids at school. 

But now, since Boris has been in New York, they go places together, like this. They go for dinner at The Jal Mahal, or to see screenings of the movies they watched as kids (“Potter they’re showing Godzilla this weekend, the original! We have to go!”). It’s different from the sort of things he used to do with Kitsey - brunch near the park, or dinner parties with friends (her friends, of course, well-dressed couples and girls Kitsey knew from college). Really, it’s more like what he might’ve once imagined doing with Pippa. 

He remembers, on these outings, how much Boris is truly fun to be around--always on the edge between laughing loudly at his own jokes and giving Theo a serious look before launching into one of his more philosophical musings. Kitsey had been hard to keep up with at times, with her energy, and so too is Boris, but Theo finds that he doesn’t mind--in fact, he likes the way it keeps him busy, trying to follow Boris’ trains of thought from one track to the next.

It does take some getting used to, though. Theo will just be getting comfortable with it, he and Boris will be walking down the street together like any two ordinary people, and then Boris will put his hand on Theo’s back to get him to stop in front of a shop window, or to pet a small dog, and the strangeness comes rushing back in. 

They do still get high together, of course. Getting high together was practically the foundation their friendship was built on, and it’s not as if either of them have slowed down since then. Oddly enough, getting high with Boris in the evenings makes it easier for Theo to get through the rest of the day sober. He finds that he can spend his mornings and afternoons in the shop largely unmedicated when he knows he’s coming home to do a few lines off of Boris’ little pocket mirror. 

The track marks on Boris’ arm are still there of course, but Theo hasn’t seen the medical tourniquet or needles he saw in Antwerp since Boris began staying in the apartment. The spoons have all stayed in the kitchen drawer, as far as Theo can tell.

\--

“Oh, did you get your invitation to Kitsey’s luncheon, dear?”

“Yes.”

Theo had, in fact, gotten the invitation to Kitsey’s charity luncheon on Sunday, with a conspicuous “plus 1” at the bottom. The most public acknowledgement anyone’s made in front of him that the engagement is over.

“And you’ll be coming, won’t you?” Mrs. Barbour says. “You know it’s for Horses for Heroes, that ranch upstate for those poor boys coming home from Afghanistan.”

“I saw,” Theo says. “I’m, um. I’m not sure yet, I’ll have to check my schedule for that day.” 

His “schedule.” He knows there isn’t jack shit on his “schedule” for that day--besides work, Kitsey was the only reason he ever had a schedule at all, and Hobie has always closed the shop on Sundays.

“Well, I hope you can make it,” she says. “We haven’t seen as much of you lately, I do miss having you around the house.”

They’re alone in the sitting room, the two of them, while Platt is out with a friend, and Kitsey is “taking the dogs for a walk.” 

(“Taking the dogs for a walk” has always meant and continues to mean that Kitsey has stepped out to visit Tom. It’s more of an insult for them to lie to his face about it than if they were to just tell him the truth, it’s not as if anyone believes there is love to be lost between him and Kitsey anymore. He might say something about it, except the image of Kitsey having to wrangle Ting-a-ling and Clementine around the neighborhood with her and Tom while they try to steal a few moments alone is such a frankly hilarious picture that Theo keeps his mouth shut on the matter.)

It seems not everyone misses Theo being around so much. Theo doesn’t necessarily blame them.

After a moment Mrs. Barbour adds, “Is your friend still staying with you--what was his name, Horace?”

“Boris,” Theo says flatly. She knows his name is Boris; they’ve had this chat every time Theo’s come over since Boris picked him up that evening.

“Yes, Boris. And how did the two of you meet again?”

“In high school, when I lived in Las Vegas,” Theo says, and again, they’ve been over this.

“Yes, that must have been a very bad time for you, I imagine,” she says, holding a cup of tea between her hands without drinking it. “You must have needed someone to lean on.”

She doesn’t say it as if she’s really even talking to Theo, it’s a,  _ you must have needed  _ someone  _ to lean on _ , as if she’s trying to justify Boris’ presence to herself. To square him into the circle she saw as Theo’s life. She hadn’t known Theo, of course, in his days with Boris, or for a long while after, and Theo has kept it that way, keeping thin on the details of his youth (it wasn’t hard to pretend, with so much of it being a blur of their two favorite V’s, vodka and vicodin, that pretending that he both didn’t recall and didn’t want to speak about it wasn’t much of an act). 

“I will always regret that we didn’t try harder for you to stay with us,” she tells him, taking his hand, and she’s said as much before. There’s a piece of Theo - there will perhaps always be a piece of Theo - that wants to swim in that, that  _ wanted _ ness, even as he remembers her sort of ambivalence at the time, a slight regret after having grown slightly fond, but not so fond as to stay in touch. What she really regrets, of course, is that she couldn’t hold onto Andy, and wishing she had kept Theo is her bargaining chip. Her,  _ If only I had done this, perhaps Andy would still be alive _ . Theo is familiar with the process. 

\--

It’s not that Theo’s doing it to spite her, honestly. To spite either of them. He doesn’t exactly have a plethora of friends to bring along, and not bringing anyone, after Kitsey put a plus one on his invitation, would just seem pathetic. 

“Are you, uh, doing anything, on Sunday?” he says to Boris on Wednesday night. 

Boris is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table, shoulders hunched as he carefully rolls a blunt.

“Not going to church, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says, looking up and giving Theo a smirk. Theo shakes his head, but he smiles for a moment before clearing his throat.

“Kitsey’s having this charity luncheon thing and I was wondering if maybe, you’d want to go?”

Boris frowns.

“Charity luncheon?” he says slowly, as if he doesn’t know the words, even though they both know he does. “Does this mean the food is free? They’re giving it away out of good charity?”

“No, you pay and the money goes to--” Theo starts, and then stops himself from getting caught up in the weeds when he knows Boris is messing with him. “You don’t need a free lunch,” he says. “We both know you have the money to pay for it.” 

There’s a pause.

“Not that that’s,” Theo says, and sighs. “That’s not why--listen, I’ll pay for your plate, I just thought it might be, I don’t know. Fun.”

He’s not selling it very well. Truth be told, he doesn’t think it’ll be fun. They’re never fun, he’s never liked them. He doesn’t really have to go anymore--with Kitsey he was sort of obligated to go, to support, to be part of the family. Now, well…now he’s not sure why he’s going exactly, other than that he was invited. He’s a little worried Boris will ask him why, actually, and that he still won’t have an answer.

But he doesn’t ask. Boris just runs his tongue along the edge of the blunt wrap and and delicately presses it down with his fingertips.

“Okay, I’ll go,” he says, not looking at Theo. 

“But,” he says, holding up a finger, “if the food is all fancy nonsense, barely anything on your plate, we’re going to dinner after.”

\--

“So, how’s the new apartment?”

Hobie doesn’t look at Theo when he talks--he rarely looks up at all when he’s working on something like this. Theo is holding the chair at just the right angle for Hobie’s lamp to chase all of the shadows away from the space he’s carefully going over with a chestnut wood stain, trying to cover some more faded patches.

“It’s good.”

Theo likes that Hobie doesn’t look at him when they talk like this. It’s easier to talk when he can let his face twist into any expression he wants, without worrying what someone might read into it. Hobie does stop to look at him now, though, over the top of his glasses, and it makes Theo laugh.

“No, really, it is good. It’s not--it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. It doesn’t feel...you know. Bad.” 

Haunted. It doesn’t feel haunted. Certainly not as haunted as the room upstairs that Theo now can’t imagine sleeping in, can’t remember how he did it for so long. If he was afraid of ghosts everywhere he looked with Kitsey, he should have been suffocating in the presence of Welty’s ghost in that room - his bed, his desk, the same view he saw out the window the same morning he took Pippa to that audition.

_ Theo _ was a ghost in that room, and maybe he had been afraid of moving somewhere else, inheriting someone else’s spirit, one that wasn’t as warm and familiar as Welty’s. But he’s starting to feel less like a ghost, in his own place, like a little more of him becomes real every day. With the changelings behind them now, the heaviness of those secrets, one on top of the other, gone, and not to mention the painting… 

He follows it, sometimes. Reads articles and museum websites about where it’s going next. Boris seems to get a kick out of it, reading about the places the painting travels now without them, in its perfect, plexiglass, bullet-proof case. But sometimes Theo revels in the not having to know. Going days at a time without even thinking of it. 

At first, when Boris had started staying with him, he was a constant reminder. Every time Theo looked at Boris’ pale face, at the redness around his eyes when he was tired, all he could think of was the smell of gunpowder and blood, and watching the painting disappear into the night. 

But more often Boris’ face reminded him of the desert--long, hot days and stale air conditioning. Now Boris’ face doesn’t remind him of anything - he just looks like Boris.

“Boris seems to be enjoying New York,” Hobie says, dabbing at an especially sun-bleached spot with his brush. Popchik, lying on his towel under the table, whines at Boris’ name, like he recognizes it. Theo shrugs.

“Yeah, I guess.”

It makes Theo nervous any time Boris comes around the shop when Hobie is there. They’ve gone out for dinner a few times, too, the three of them, when Hobie insisted on showing Boris the sandwich shop he and Theo would get lunch at sometimes, or the pub they’d go to on special occasions.

He feels bad, getting so antsy about it--Hobie seems to like Boris, genuinely (Hobie likes people in the way that Theo does, likes the stories of them, and Boris has more stories than anyone Theo’s ever met). And Boris, well, sometimes it’s hard to tell with Boris, when he likes someone or not. It’s easy to tell if he hates them, because he never makes much of a secret of it, could never help muttering snide comments about the kids he didn’t like in their classes at school, but truly Boris doesn’t hate that many people, and it’s hard to tell sometimes which ones he likes and which he is simply ambivalent about.

But he’s stopped calling Hobie “the old poofter,” which has to mean something (and thank God never said it to Hobie’s face - Theo doesn’t know what Hobie would think of that but he prefers to never find out), and doesn’t seem to mind stopping by the shop to pick Theo up on the way to dinner, as they’re doing tonight. 

“I think Boris could like anywhere,” Theo says. “Or like it enough, you know?”

“Just like you like your apartment ‘enough?’” Hobie says with a smile, and Theo shakes his head.

“That’s not--it’s not the same.” 

“It’s nice to see you hanging out with someone your own age, instead of me and Mrs. DeFrees,” Hobie says, and Theo frowns.

“I hang out with people my own age all the time,” he says, but suddenly can’t think of anyone besides Kitsey and Kitsey’s friends whose names he didn’t bother himself overmuch with remembering. 

Hobie moves Theo’s hand on the leg of the chair, and they set it down flat on the tabletop, so Hobie can examine his work. 

“Maybe you and Boris should get a bigger place, if he’s going to be staying,” Hobie says, looking up with a twinkle in his eye. “He doesn’t seem to have too much trouble with finances.”

Theo doesn’t know what to say to that. Boris of course makes himself out to be a businessman of some kind when anyone asks.

“I am, how do you say...an entrepreneur,” he told Hobie with a grin when it had come up. 

Hobie’s not naive--the marked lack of detail in which Boris or Theo will talk about Boris’ work hasn’t escaped him--but he seems to assume Boris’ questionable nature is more of the get-rich-quick scheme variety, than the international drug trafficking variety. Theo is content to let him keep that assumption, but it does make it difficult to talk about Boris’ plans for any length of time. 

He is saved by the devil himself, as they hear the door upstairs, having been left unlocked for this very purpose, slam, and fast footsteps come thudding down the stairs. 

“There he is!” Boris says loudly, arms outstretched, as soon as he gets down into the workshop. “My favorite person!”

Theo’s face flushes immediately. What kind of a thing is that to say? In front of Hobie too, it’s just weird, it sounds wrong. Theo knows what he means, but how is anyone else going to interpret that? How would--

Popchik jumps up from his towel under the table and goes racing as fast as his old legs will let him towards Boris, who scoops him up and rubs noses with him.

“Yes, my favorite little person, oh yes poustyshka, you have missed me! Well I have missed you too.”

The flush on Theo’s face deepens. 

He mutters, “He’s a dog, not a person.” Which, of course, Boris ignores, in favor of letting Popchik bark in his ear, laughing when the little furball licks his face. 

Theo notices Hobie is watching him with a thoughtful, almost amused look, pondering him, and he scowls, looking away.

\--

“I saw you RSVP’d for the luncheon,” Mrs. Barbour says when she’s managed to corner him again. 

They’re not alone; Platt is there with them, as Mrs. Barbour is perched on her chair in the reception hall, glancing at menus and plating selections, giving almost imperceptible shakes of her head at each one--none of “Kitsey’s” parties have ever really been all hers, with Mrs. Barbour always in the background putting in a final word, and Theo had never been able to figure out if this arrangement was Kitsey’s preference or Mrs. Barbour’s--but as usual, he’s only half paying attention to them, the rest of him seemingly lost in his own private daze, eyeing a few of the assistants setting up tables. 

“Yes,” Theo says, not that it’s necessary for him to acknowledge her--she always assumes he’s listening. To her credit, he usually is. 

“And you marked that you’ll be bringing a guest.” 

She lets the sentence hang. 

“Yes.”

“Well, how lovely, I look forward to meeting her. You’ll be at our table, of course.”

It’s this moment, here, when he should warn her. Mrs. Barbour, for all her many flaws, her vanities and mistruths, has tried to be good to him. Is trying to be good to him now, in her way. And there was a time, not at all long ago, when he thought she would, well--not  _ replace _ his mother, because there was never a question of someone doing that, but that she might become a new one to him. He should tell her, is the point, should say at least, that it’s not a “her” at all, in fact it’s--

“Your friend, is he still staying with you?”

It would be the perfect moment to bring it up, but Theo just nods.

“Well, perhaps having...someone new, around, will let him know it’s time to go, hm? I know it can be bothersome when guests overstay their welcome--”

_ Did I overstay my welcome? _ Theo wants to ask,  _ is that why you all never wrote to me, never called? _

“He hasn’t,” Theo says. And when she looks puzzled, “Overstayed his welcome.”

“Dear,” she says, giving him a pitying look, breaking it only to examine two off-white shades of napkins before looking back at him. “You are so kind. You know I just worry that…”

Theo tries not to let anything show on his face, but he must have failed, because she stops for a moment, before barrelling on. 

“It’s just that you never know with these people, what they might be into, you know,” she lowers her voice, “drugs, and all kinds of nasty business.”

This time when she sees Theo’s face she takes his hand in hers.

“No, really,” she leans in close, speaking softly. Theo can see the imperfect line where her lipstick meets the inside of her mouth. “Pills are one thing--” 

He starts, pulling his hand away, but she holds onto it.

“Pills are one thing, I know it, but the things these people are doing are so much worse, you don’t understand, darling.” She pulls back, at last, and gives a little, exaggerated shudder.

“I’m not saying he isn’t nice, some of them are!” she continues, leaning back in her chair, and for a moment Theo had forgotten they were even talking about Boris. “You remember Yurik, who used to work on our pipes? He was just wonderful, never had any problems with him at all. I’m just saying to be careful, dear.”

There is no thought in Theo’s mind anymore, of telling her the truth about who’s coming to lunch tomorrow. There  _ is _ a part of him that wants to tell her exactly how both right and wrong she has managed to be, that wants to tell her exactly what it is Boris does for a living (as exactly as Theo knows himself), exactly what he and Boris do every night in the apartment. And exactly how kind, and faithful Boris is. How he thinks so carefully, if not necessarily before he speaks, while he speaks, how he doesn’t just regurgitate the same platitudes he’s been told his whole life, and has more interesting things to say in one afternoon about what really makes a person good or bad than Mrs. Barbour has had in her entire life. 

But of course he stays quiet, and even nods as if in passive agreement. 

“But enough of that,” Mrs. Barbour says, holding out her hand to receive a new seating chart from one of the assistants trying to avoid eye contact with Platt. “I’m just delighted you’ll be bringing someone to the luncheon.”

The guilt nags at him, all through the rest of the afternoon. Not about lying - or rather, omitting - the truth about his lunch guest, but about the fact that he hadn’t stood up for Boris, when he knows, bone-deep, as much as he knows anything--Boris would have stood up for him.

\--

“I was thinking something different tonight,” Boris says when Theo gets home and goes to pull out the bag of oxys he keeps taped up under the couch. 

Boris pulls a square of tinfoil from his pocket and carefully peels it apart to reveal two little squares of paper. Theo just stares for a moment, examining the pictures on them - a crescent moon on one, a butterfly on the other. 

“Our last acid trip didn’t end so well,” Theo says.

Boris shrugs.

“Can’t blame that on the acid,” he says. 

Theo hasn’t done acid since that day, but it’s not because of the memory. It’s the same reason he never tried ecstasy - acid, he’s been told time and time again, is a drug best done with others, with friends, lovers, at a party - and that hasn’t really been Theo’s scene for the past eight years. 

He remembers fragments of the trip he shared with Boris all those years ago, the film-like world they’d wandered through, black and white, how funny it had seemed that their vision was the same.

“Okay,” he says, rubbing his sweaty palms on his pants. 

“Really?” Boris says, eyebrows raised. “Just like that?” 

“What, did you want to fight about it or something?” Theo says, and Boris laughs, shaking his head. 

“No, no.” 

He wets two fingers on his tongue, and picks up the tabs with his damp fingertips. He puts one in his own mouth, and holds the other up to Theo’s lips. Theo opens his mouth and sticks his tongue out just enough for Boris to stick the tab on it. Boris’ finger is warm and salty with sweat.

“Okay,” Boris says, “a full tab each, it should only take a few minutes, maybe fifteen, twenty.”

Theo loses track of the time. They’re both sitting back against the couch, the golden-yellow evening sun streaming in through the window behind them, and Theo lets his mind drift. 

He’s watching dust moats cast in the sunlight, glowing specs like fireflies. He’s never seen a firefly. He wonders if Boris has - they didn’t have them in Vegas, but Boris has been a great number of places since then, some of which Theo doesn’t know anything about. 

Theo turns to ask him, but Boris is gone, had gotten up without Theo noticing. 

There were only so many places in the apartment that one could go. 

Theo gets to his feet, wobbling a little, watching as the colors around him smear like wet paint. He tiptoes his way to the bedroom doorway, careful not to get the wet paint all over his socks. 

Boris is lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, with his hands up above him, making shapes and swirls with his fingers, leaving trails of yellow, blue, orange in their wake. Theo gets lost just watching, and when Boris speaks it startles him.

“Come here,” Boris says to him, holding a hand out towards him, and Theo wavers in the doorway, feeling as if he shouldn’t go, but unable to remember why. 

“I can’t,” he says, and Boris shakes his head.

“Just, come here, Potter,” Boris says again, and Theo still can’t remember why he shouldn’t, so he does. 

He sits next to Boris on the bed and sinks down - down, down, down, farther than the bed should be able to go, he should be going right through the floor right now - and laughs.

“Are you feeling this?” he mumbles, and when he looks over Boris is smiling at him.

They spend a while - minutes? hours, maybe? It’s hard to tell - just feeling things, running their hands along the blankets on the bed, along the bumps in the wall behind them, along their own faces. They spend another hour maybe just staring. 

Theo stares at Boris’ face, the way it’s turned half yellow and half charcoal, not his skin, but the shadows in his lips and the circles under his eyes. He reaches out to touch the streaks of color like paint, to see if they come away on his fingers. 

His fingers do come away wet, but no color on them. It’s tears, he realizes - Boris has tears drying on his cheeks, even as he’s got a faint smile on his face.

It’s that realization, that Boris is crying, that makes Theo realize he’s crying too. He reaches for Boris’ face again, and this time Boris opens his eyes. 

There’s something on the tip of Theo’s tongue, he’s not sure what it is, but he can’t escape the feeling that he shouldn’t say it, whatever it is. That he’s not supposed to, that sober Theo, who seems like a whole different person at this point, wouldn’t want him to. 

Not being able to remember what the thing is, though, it leaves Theo tongue-tied, a little afraid to say anything, in case it ends up being  _ the  _ thing without him knowing. 

Boris doesn’t seem to need him to talk, though. Boris’ hand lands heavy on Theo’s cheek, his fingertips soft, rubbing against Theo’s skin.

“Your face,” Boris says, “the colors…”

“We got color this time,” Theo agrees.

Boris laughs, and Theo laughs. 

It’s as if Theo can see Boris’ face across years, the rounder lines of his face at 15 years old melting into the harder, squarer lines of his face now, as a man. It’s like Theo can see through him, see into him, see Boris at every moment and every possible moment. 

Boris’ hand falls lower, to Theo’s neck, and his nails scrape against Theo’s skin. Theo takes a deep breath.

Just like coming into the room, just like trying to speak, there’s something Theo knows he shouldn’t be doing. A line that he isn’t supposed to cross, but he can’t figure out what it is. Boris touching his neck reminds him of that line, but doesn’t make it any clearer. The warmth, the roughness of Boris’ palm, even as his touch is gentle, makes Theo’s skin feel like a livewire, which makes it easy enough to put lines out of his head completely. 

Boris’ hand drops from Theo’s neck to his chest, making small circles the fabric of his longsleeved shirt, near the collar, and Theo can see inside of him, the blue tornado that’s inside his skin, that always is and always has been, and into the eye of the tornado where Boris’ self is, and it’s good. He knows that more now than he’s ever known it before, that the eye of Boris’ blue tornado is warm and still and good, like...well, not like anything, because it’s so  _ Boris _ that it couldn’t be anything else. 

It’s the eye of that tornado that keeps Theo feeling calm when Boris gets so close that his lips brush Theo’s lips, light and dry, not so much a kiss as just another place to be touching. He feels good and so, so soft, his hand on Theo’s chest and his lips on Theo’s lips melting them together, soft like wax, making dents in Theo’s skin and filling the gaps at the same time. Theo can sort of remember a dark scene, orange and yellow-black, nighttime, another time their lips touched. 

Theo opens his mouth, and lets the wetness inside of his mouth touch Boris’. He makes it a kiss, lets the tornado pull him in. 

Boris grabs his face and pulls him closer hungrily. His teeth scrape Theo’s bottom lip, and it sends a shiver down through Theo’s ribs, to his stomach. 

That shiver--Theo knows immediately. That was the line. The line he wasn’t supposed to cross, and right now he can’t really remember why, but he knows, he knows he shouldn’t.

Theo jerks back and lurches sideways, off of the bed. He uses the wall to pull himself up, his legs shaking. He keeps his closed, breathing in hard gasps, trying to get himself back on the ground. 

When he turns back around, Boris is sitting up on the bed with his legs loosely crossed, staring into the distance with his brow furrowed. 

He looks over, confused, like he can’t quite remember where he is, or where he’s been, or why, but he holds a hand out to Theo. 

\--

The next thing Theo really knows, he’s on the street outside, and it’s cold, but the cold only touches the inside of him, not the outside, like his bones are shivering but his skin is warm. Building loom large in the electric orange shadow of the streetlamps and it’s not until he sees the green bell that he realizes he’s been walking to the shop, to Hobie’s. 

He can’t let Hobie know he’s high, of course, but he’s hidden it from him before. Theo tugs on the bottom of his shirt as if to straighten himself out, and rings the bell. He’s still listening to it echo in his head when Hobie opens the door in his pajamas.

“Theo? Is everything alright?” 

It didn’t occur to Theo that it might be too late to visit, as dark as it is.

“I came to see Popchyk,” he says, because it’s the first thing he thinks of. Hobie frowns, and Theo remembers he’s got to act normal, normal, like he’s not high. 

“I’m just…not feeling well,” he adds, hoping that will cover for any weirdness. Hobie steps aside to let him in. 

“He’s in there,” Hobie says, nodding towards the living room as he puts a kettle on the stove. For a moment, Theo unreasonably thinks he means Boris, that Boris is in there. Hobie must see the panicked look on Theo’s face because he frowns again and says, “Theo, are you okay? Is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Theo says, still staring warily into the living room even though his brain has caught up now, and he knows it’s only Popchik lying on the sofa. “Boris and I just…” 

He snaps his mouth closed when he realizes he has no way to finish that sentence.

“We got in an argument,” he says lamely. 

The teakettle starts whistling and Hobie brings it to the table, where he must’ve set out two mugs while Theo wasn’t looking. Theo sits down and rubs his fingers along the wood on the underside of the chair. He’s not looking for anything in particular, like he usually would on the underside of a chair, just feeling, feeling the worn-down grain of it, just polished enough not to give him splinters.

“What was is about?” Hobie asks, and Theo looks up and him, confused. “The argument? What was it about?”

“Oh, I…” Theo starts, but he can’t think of a lie fast enough. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Hobie sips his tea.

“Boris has been in New York for quite a while.”

In his head Theo can hear a voice in his head, although he can’t quite place it, saying  _ overstay his welcome, overstay his welcome. _

“He can stay if he wants.” As soon as he’s said it, Theo recognizes it as another line, another line that sober Theo wouldn’t want him to cross, but it’s a bit late for that.

Hobie just nods, still sipping the tea, and his face looks especially tired and wrinkled in the lamplight; Theo can see every ridge on his skin, and each and every year in them.

“I just mean that--” Theo starts, but again he doesn’t know how to finish. He feels like he has to hold his breath to stop something bad from happening, the wrong thing from coming out. He takes a drink from his mug to have a reason not to speak and burns his tongue.

“You seem happier, with him around,” Hobie says, and then gives a wry smile into his mug. “Tonight notwithstanding.” 

Theo still doesn’t know what to say, so he just rubs his burnt tongue along the ridged roof of his mouth and shrugs. 

“That’s a good thing,” Hobie says when Theo doesn’t respond, his voice over-easy. “You know I’ve always hoped you would find someone like I--well, you and Kitsey seemed to have fun together but I don’t remember you smiling as much with her.”

Theo has lost the thread of the conversation. They’re talking about Kitsey, now? Theo doesn’t want to talk about Kitsey either.

“You know there’s this ranch upstate where they let veterans come ride horses?” he blurts out. Hobie doesn’t answer, just looks at him and waits. “Kitsey’s having a lunch about it.”

“I see,” Hobie says, after a moment of silence. Theo doesn’t know why he’s said it, but Hobie seems to still be waiting for more, waiting for a point.

“Boris said he’d come with me.” 

Hobie actually laughs.

“Well, that should be interesting.” 

Theo gets the sense that sober Theo might laugh along with Hobie, but he has suddenly never felt more serious than he does now.

“Yes,” he agrees, his voice solemn, and Hobie gives him a strange look again.

“Well, I’m going to go back to bed,” Hobie says after a few minutes, during which Theo has been trying to touch his mug of tea and failing because the heat keeps seeping out in and into his fingers in little rippling waves before he even makes contact. “You can always stay in your room, if you’d like.”

_ His _ room. But it’s not his room. Maybe it was, for a while, but it didn’t start as his room, and it isn’t his anymore.

“I think I should go home.”

Hobie has already headed down the hallway.

“Be careful,” he says. “Goodnight, Theo.”

\--

Boris avoids him the next morning, morosely eating a pear in the kitchen, taking whole bites out of it like an apple (Theo didn’t even realize they had pears, and all he can think is how sweet it must be in Boris’ mouth) while Theo dresses in the bedroom and checks himself in the mirror. Normally Boris would be leaning on the doorframe, chattering, making fun of him when he puts too much product in his hair. 

Theo’s not sure what role exactly he played last night--he knows they kissed, and he knows he ran out after, but the specifics are muddled in a fog of color and the feeling of being spun around and around by something warm. He’s not sure what role he’s supposed to play  _ now, _ if he’s supposed to be angry, or supposed to be apologizing. 

Well, he’s not going to apologize. He doesn’t think he started it, but even if he did, it’s not like Boris has ever said he was sorry for or even _ mentioned _ laying one on him that night in Vegas, so why should Theo apologize now? 

He assumes Boris won’t be coming to the luncheon with him now, if he even remembered he had agreed to go in the first place. Which is probably for the best, anyway. Theo can make up some excuse for his non-existent date, and they’ll all either see through it and pity him, or think she’s stood him up and pity him. Either way it’s the quiet sort of suffering Theo knows how to bear.

But when he comes out of the bedroom, smoothing down his shirt where it’s tucked into his pants, Boris is waiting by the door with his shoes on. 

“Are you going somewhere?” Theo says, searching his pockets for his house key. Boris gives him a strange look.

“We’re going to blondie’s lunch party, yes?” 

Theo tries not to look surprised.

“Oh, yeah, yes. I just. Yeah, let’s go.”

Gyuri is waiting for them in the car downstairs, and as they pull away from the curb, Boris says, “You thought I wasn’t coming?”

Theo is all too aware of Gyrui sitting not four feet in front of them, hearing every word, and besides that, there’s a certain place Theo needs to get to in his head before he can do things like this, before he can face other people, and getting to that place does not involve having complicated talks with Boris about why he’s been sulking all morning and who did or did not kiss whom last night.

“I don’t want to talk about this right now Boris,” Theo says, and Boris grimaces, holding up his hands in defeat. He sits back against the seat without another word, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence.

\--  
  


There’s no shocked look Mrs. Barbour’s face when they sit down at the table, Theo at her left side across from Kistey, and Boris next to him, Platt to his right. There’s no double take, no gasp, not so much as a lift of her eyebrows. Even these days she is much too poised to give herself away that easily. 

Kitsey does look a little surprised, although he probably wouldn’t notice if he didn’t know how to look for it, and it occurs to Theo that the only time she’s ever seen Boris, if she saw him at all, was at the engagement party. She’s done her best to see Theo only in passing since then. He worries for a moment that it might give her the wrong picture of them, but then she notices she has  _ Tom _ sitting next to her, of all people, as if  _ Tom _ even cares about charity luncheons anyway, so to hell with it, who cares if she gets the wrong picture.

“Boris, how wonderful to see you again,” Mrs. Barbour says; it would’ve seemed tacky to “forget” his name again, and she knows better. 

Boris--well, he doesn’t light up, exactly, but it’s as if something in snaps into place and whatever mood he’d been in this morning disappears, for the moment at least. 

“Yes, thank you, you look very lovely, everything looks very lovely,” he says, smiling.

Theo lets out the breath he’d been holding. Boris may not be polished, but he has always been charming. This doesn’t have to be so bad, and in fact, maybe he should have let Boris talk to Mrs. Barbour more in the first place, maybe she’d like him more if he had. 

“Well thank you, how kind of you to say. Darling,” she says, taking Kitsey’s hand on the table, “this is Boris, Theo’s high school friend who’s been staying with him.”

Recognition dawns on Kitsey’s face, and although she still looks a bit baffled--the last she’d heard about Boris, of course, was that he was an old friend Theo hadn’t spoken to in almost a decade--she smiles. 

“Boris, this is my daughter Kitsey, her friend, Tom, and my son Platt is on your other side there.”

At Tom’s name Boris kicks Theo’s foot under the table, and when everyone’s gone back to their conversations, Theo looks over. Boris shoots a glance at Tom, and one back at Theo that says,  _ The asshole with the cigarettes?? _

Theo nods, but gives him a serious look to say,  _ just drop it _ , and Boris does, with a frown.

The first course is brought out, a salad with grapefruit and walnuts. Theo watches as Boris picks through it with his fork for a moment before shrugging and shoving a bite into his mouth. It makes him both want to smile and want to look away. He glances around the table, but thankfully no one is looking at them.

“Yours doesn’t have cheese, does it, Mommy?” Kitsey is saying, touching Mrs. Barbour’s elbow, and Boris kicks Theo’s foot again.

_ Mommy? _ He mouths incredulously when Theo looks over, and rolls his eyes. This time Theo does smile.

“So your date couldn’t make it after all, I take it?” Mrs. Barbour says, grazing Theo’s arm with her hand. Theo coughs on his grapefruit.

“No, Boris is my--” He stops. It feels as though she’s trapped him. “I mean, I invited Boris when I got the invitation.” 

Boris awkwardly taps the stem of his wine glass with his thumbnail.

“Was very kind of Theo to invite me, glad to be here,” he says, eyes darting from Mrs. Barbour’s face to Theo’s, to the tablecloth, to the ceiling. 

_ Be cool _ , Theo wants to tell him, but Boris won’t look at him long enough. 

“Yes, that was very kind of you, Theo,” Mrs. Barbour says meaningfully. “Boris, dear, that is such a charming accent you’ve got, where is it you’re from? I don’t believe Theo mentioned.”

“Oh, Russia, Ukraine, Australia, mainly, but anywhere you think of, I have probably lived there for at least two months. Sweden, Canada, New Guinea…”

“Oh, New Guinea,” Kitsey says, “Toddy’s got a friend who was just there on a mission trip a few months ago.”

“Yes…very beautiful there,” Boris says, his voice going flat as he just manages to hide his distaste.

“Missionaries,” he had said once, to Theo, when a pair came knocking at the apartment. “Imagine, going to someplace brand new! And then you spend the whole time trying to make it like where you came from. It’s colonization, Potter, and waste of a good trip.”

“Well, what an interesting lifestyle!” Mrs. Barbour says, reminding the table who’s steering the conversation. “And when will you be going home?”

The table falls quiet. 

Theo just stares at her hard, willing her to shut up, willing her to have shut up a few minutes ago. 

Boris hesitates, clearly startled by the question and by the table’s reaction to it. 

“Theo mentioned he’s been so kind as to let you say with him, temporarily,” Mrs. Barbour says by way of explanation. “You must have a wonderful job to be able to get so much time off of work. How lucky!”

Theo can feel his face burning. He should say something to her--the whole table can tell she’s out of line, he should tell her so, or steer her in another direction at least, but he stays silent.

“Yes. I am, as you say, an entrepreneur,” Boris says.

It doesn’t sound nearly as confident and assured as it did when he said it to Hobie, and he’s nervously drumming his fingers on the side of his chair. Mrs. Barbour sips her wine, keeping eye contact with Boris. 

“I see. How fun.”

Boris shifts in his chair. Theo wishes he could squeeze his hand, or have a moment alone to tell him he’s doing fine.

“Well if we don’t see you again before you leave, have a safe trip,” she says, with a smile. “I’m sure it’ll be nice to be home again after such a long time, and I’m sure Theo will be happy to have his apartment back to himself.”

Theo stops mid-breath, just freezes, and the only move he can seem to make it to turn to see Boris’ face. 

Boris’ polite smile, which had already been wavering, is like a mask now as he nods vacantly, not, it seems, in response to anything in particular. 

“I am going to get a drink,” he mutters finally, still trying to smile, baring his teeth. He pushes himself up and away from the table, disappearing in the general direction of the bar.

“Mommy! That was rude,” Kistey whispers when he’s gone, and gives Theo a look somehow both apologetic and conspiratorial, like she’s both saying  _ sorry about her _ and  _ can you believe her?  _ at the same time. Theo appreciates it, and it reminds him that at the core of it, they had been friends, before everything got so complicated. 

“Oh no, Theo understands, don’t you dear?” Mrs. Barbour is saying. “I just worry, that’s all, and he never did say when he’s going home.”

“He’s not going  _ home _ ,” Theo says, too loudly. And then, lower, “Boris isn’t going home, because he is home, he has a home here for as long as he wants it.” 

“Theo, I know your heart’s in the right place, but you must think of your own good. You could’ve brought anyone along with you today, and you felt obligated to bring your friend, I understand, but he is not--”

“I didn’t feel obligated to bring him along, I--” Of  _ course _ she would think it was out of obligation, of course she couldn’t conceive of anything else. A politeness, a duty--that’s why they had first agreed to take Theo in for those weeks after his mother died, wasn’t it? 

Theo takes a deep breath.

“Boris can stay for as long as he wants, and come to as many lunches as I’m invited to. And I honestly don’t care if he never leaves--he’s my best friend, and he was there for me when no one else was.”

If Mrs. Barbour recognizes the dig, she doesn’t acknowledge it. 

“There’s no need to make a scene dear,” she reaches out to take Theo’s hand. “I know he’s your friend, no one is suggesting otherwise.

“I’m just urging you to think of the future,” she goes on. “Doing a favor for a friend is a wonderful thing, but at some point you’ll want to have room for other people, to be able to bring a real date out with you.”

Was that what all this was about then? She was trying to get him paired off and squared away, to, to what? To make Kitsey’s quick transition from being engaged to Theo to being seen in polite society next to Tom seem more palatable? To make the whole thing seem reciprocated (which, truly, it was), to make it seem like a poor match rather than a lack of her daughter’s own character?

What of her distaste for Boris, then? Could it all really be borne out of wanting Theo to settle down, out of sight? A simple desire to make sure nothing stood in the way of a smooth ending?

Or was it something else? Was it possible that she thought they were...well, that she had gotten the wrong idea about them?

_ Or perhaps _ , Theo thinks grimly, thinking of last night, of Boris’ lips on his,  _ exactly the  _ right _ idea. _

“And besides,” Mrs. Barbour adds, filling his silence, “Boris will need to learn his own way, don’t you think?” Her voice and the certain knowing tilt of it suggests not only that Boris must do it on his own, but that it would be a different “way” than the rest of them, a different way than she, than Kitsey, than Theo himself, must take.

It was as if she both could and couldn’t see the interconnectedness of them, how Theo’s way would always have something to do with Boris’. As if she could see the scope of it, how large it loomed, but not the inevitability of it. As if this were an iceberg they could dodge if she warned Theo soon enough, as if he hasn’t been crashing into it over and over again for years. 

But really, Theo can hardly blame her for that. It’s only a matter of months--a little over a year this last winter, from when Boris appeared in front of him as if by magic on the sidewalk--since Theo realized himself how inexorable it all is. 

And what she certainly can’t see--a bit that Theo does want to blame her for but knows, deep down, is really the fault of his own passive silences--is how Theo doesn’t  _ want _ to dodge it. This is an ocean he will be satisfied to drown in, if that’s where it takes him.

“No,” he says, after what has been really a long pause, and Mrs. Barbour and the rest of them look a bit startled, having thought the conversation over. “No, why should he? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well dear, you wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.” She says it slowly, carefully, like it’s an ace in her hand he didn’t know about, but like she’s showing it to him before she lays it on the table.

_ The wrong idea, the wrong picture, thinking the wrong thing.  _ Despite the fact--or, perhaps, because of it--that those same words have been echoing in Theo’s own head since forever, since he met Boris, and probably before, he hates her for saying them out loud.

“And what would be the wrong idea?” he says hotly. 

“Oh, dear, you know I don’t mean anything by it, I just--”

“No, really, what would be the wrong idea?”

“Mommy,” Kitsey warns in a whisper, and it’s sort of funny--she knows how Theo can get when he’s angry as well as anyone, she can see when the switch has been flipped. But Mrs. Barbour doesn’t see it, and she waves Kitsey’s voice away with her hand. 

“Well, you wouldn’t want anyone to think the two of you were...involved, in such a way. With a man like that, you just never know. And that certainly wouldn’t--”

_ A man like that _ . It rings in Theo’s ears, louder for all the other things he’s let slide, and because he can see behind his eyelids Boris’ face when she said “ _ I’m sure Theo will be happy to have his apartment back _ ,” and the belief in him that it was true.

“Boris,” he says over her, “is the greatest friend I’ve ever known. Boris is the bravest, smartest, most loyal  _ person _ I’ve ever met, and--” Theo stops to take a breath and in Mrs. Barbour’s eyes, behind the lack of real surprise in them, behind what is more disappointment than alarm, he can see that’s she’s sort of trapped him again, perhaps on purpose, or perhaps on accident, by way of his own artlessness, but he’s finding it hard to care, this time. He stands up, hands pressed flat on the table. 

“And so what, if people think we’re involved?” he says, “So what? I should be so lucky, for someone like Boris to, to--” he can’t finish. He can barely breathe and his hands are trembling. He doesn’t know if people are staring but it certainly  _ feels _ like people are staring. He can’t stand to be in the room anymore, it’s both too big and too full, both crushing him and leaving him unmoored at the same time. 

He turns around to leave, fumbling his way out from behind his chair--only to see Boris, standing behind him, a forgotten drink dangling in his hand.

Theo blushes furiously and turns again, away from Boris and the table both, towards the door of the reception hall, and begins pushing his way through the crowd of chairs and waiters. 

He doesn’t breathe until he reaches the lobby outside, and is pushing his sweaty hair out of his face face when hears from behind him, “Potter. Potter!”

This time he doesn’t turn around to look.

When Boris catches up he lays his hands on Theo’s shoulders, before tilting his face up by his chin, making Theo look at him.

“You should be so lucky for what?” he says, breathing hard, face red. Theo stares at him blankly.

“”You should be so lucky for a man like Boris to what?” he insists, cupping Theo’s face in both his hands now. “Finish the sentence.”

Theo moves to push him away but Boris grabs hold of his hands and squeezes them tightly.

“I’m sorry,” Theo says, his voice rough, and he’s not sure if he’s apologizing for not having finished the sentence or for having started it in the first place. Boris brings his hands back to hold Theo’s face again and this time Theo doesn’t fight it.

“Theo. Finish the sentence.”

Theo looks at Boris’ face, at the pinch between his sharp brows, at the flush on his cheeks. He can feel his own eyes are a little glassy, giving him away, but he’s still too good to let so much as a tear fall. 

“I should be so lucky,” he says, barely loud enough for Boris to hear him, “for a man like Boris...to love me.”

Boris kisses him hard, on the mouth.

His teeth press against Theo’s bottom lip, and when he pulls away he’s grinning.

“Potter, I have to tell you, you must be luckiest man alive,” he says. “No--luckiest man in history!”

For a moment Theo still manages to think,  _ well of course Boris loves me, but he doesn’t mean it like that. _ But then Boris kisses him again, deeper, deeper than he did last night, deeper than he did when they were kids, and Theo has to wonder how many times Boris is going to have to kiss him before he believes it.

Boris slips his tongue in Theo’s mouth and Theo pushes at his shoulders, pushes back just far enough to say, “Jesus Christ, Boris, not  _ here _ .” But his voice sounds wrecked, which ruins it completely. 

“Ha ha!” Boris barks, loudly, just as a stiff voice behind him says, “Excuse me sir, I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down.”

There’s a party of bridesmaids across the hall, Theo sees now, to his horror, staring at them and giggling. 

“Sorry, we’re leaving,” Theo says to the nervous-looking attendant, who has just found herself on the receiving end of a very intense but also worlds-away look from Boris.

  
  


They go out for food, of course, walking the blocks back to a Thai place Boris likes near the apartment. 

“I can’t believe, all this, and I don’t even get to find out what these rich assholes eat,” Boris says. “Cruel, Potter, tearing me away so soon.” 

Theo laughs, but he doesn’t say anything--he’s not proud of it, having made a big scene in front of all those people. Worth it, certainly, for the wideness of Boris’ smile, for the fever of his kiss in the lobby…

“You know what?” Boris says. “I bet you I have more money than she does, even.”

“Okay, well, not exactly money you earned fair and square, so.” Theo’s not sure if Boris means the money from the painting or money from his “this and that,” elsewhere, but he knows either way he’s right. Boris scoffs.

“Oh, and she earned every dollar, I’m betting? Worked very hard, I’m sure.”

Theo laughs again.

“Okay fine, you win.”

So they eat, but when they get home Boris pushes Theo onto his bed and kisses him, and kisses him and kisses him like he’s still starving, devouring Theo with every kiss. And it feels good to be devoured. 

\--

The next morning, when they’re both lying in Theo’s bed and Theo is running his fingers through the sweat on Boris’ chest, flushed and still half out of his mind with the fact that this is something they’re doing now,(desperately relieved for it and also barely choking back the panic of what it might mean) Boris has the nerve to look completely at ease, eyes closed and self-satisfied smile on his face.

“I should send her flowers,” he says, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“What?”

“I should send her flowers, say, ‘Mrs. B, thank you for all the help,’ no?”

Theo laughs at the absurdity of it, and Boris cracks an eye open to watch him, smile widening. It only eggs him on.

“‘Mrs. B, couldn’t have done it without you!’” he says. “‘Mrs. B, the sex is great, and all thanks to you!’”

Theo almost chokes on his own laughter. 

“Yeah,  _ no _ , I don’t think so. Some things need to stay between us.”

“Hmm. Some things,” Boris agrees vaguely, in a way that does not at all convince Theo he means it.

“I’m serious. You’re not telling my former almost mother-in-law about our sex life.”

“Bleh,” Boris says, making a face, sticking his tongue out. “‘Mommy.’ Ice princess is beautiful, yes, but lifetime of ‘Mommy’? I am thinking you are lucky after all, lucky I got you out of  _ that _ one in time.”

Theo doesn’t say anything, but he lets Boris pick up his hand and play with his fingers. 

“What about Hobie?” Boris says after a moment. “Can I tell Hobie?”

“About our sex life? No, absolutely not. In fact, I don’t think you need to tell anyone, it’s called tact.”

Boris gives him an exaggerated frown. 

“But he will be so happy for us! He will say, ‘Finally!’ Selfish, Potter, not to tell him.”

“We are not telling Hobie about our sex life,” Theo says again, seriously, because he wouldn’t put it past Boris to try. “But,” he says, more slowly, “maybe we could tell him, in general...you know.”

“Ah yes, good plan,” Boris says with a sincere nod. “Tell him we are madly in love, and he can imagine the rest.”

“Gross, Boris,” Theo laughs, thumping his chest, but his heart jumps-- _ madly in love _ .

  
  


\--

The flower arrangement is huge, extravagant, and obviously expensive. Orchids, hydrangeas, lilies-of-the-valley.

“How lovely,” Mrs. Barbour says. “Who is it from, dear?”

Kitsey scans the card quickly, sort of squinting at it at first, and then bursts out laughing. 

“What? What is it?” 

Kitsey tries and fails to speak, handing her mother the card wordlessly, wiping a tear from her eye and shaking her head.

Mrs. Barbour frowns and takes it from her.

_ Mrs. B, _

_ From my bottom of heart, thank you for your help. And don’t worry, I think he is still very happy. _

_ Proshchay! _

_ Boris _


End file.
